Searching for Strawberries: Are Farmers' Market or Store Bought Best?

When you're strawberry picking and you find in the scrub a berry that is fatter and a deeper red than any in your basket, look around. Look past your fellow foragers, past the sign that reads, "Do Not Eat Strawberries," and to the farmers inspecting the furrows, watering, and selling fruit by the pint at their farm stand. Is anyone watching? No? Pop that berry into your mouth.

Right now, the strawberry in your mouth is at peak flavor. It's fresh off the plant, still warm from the sun, ripe, luscious, a sweet and tangy expression of spring. This is a strawberry—a fruit with red flesh, yellow seeds, and a green top. This is a berry, a tiny and tart fruit kissed by the sun, picked, and popped into your mouth, sometimes by the handful. Unfortunately, most of us can't drive to the farm for fresh strawberries when a craving strikes. Instead, we get the pre-picked, pre-packaged fruit at the grocery store or farmers' market.

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Conventional wisdom tells us the best strawberries come from small farms, the kind that let you pick for yourself, the kind that make strawberry jams and pastries. If we are to drink food movement's Kool-Aid, we would believe that the best strawberries come from a nearby patch, and that the very best strawberries have never been sprayed, except perhaps by water. Recently, at the height of strawberry season, the Good Housekeeping Research Institute (GHRI) conducted a farm stand vs. supermarket-bought strawberry test. You may be surprised by what we found.

When strawberries hit the farmers' market, we rounded up two-dozen pints. The GHRI labs are in New York City; the strawberries we found at local farmers' markets came from plants upstate, in New Jersey, and in Pennsylvania. On the same Wednesday we bought strawberries from farmers' markets, we also went to supermarkets and bought some 430 strawberries. We wanted to test the strawberries for taste, appearance, and shelf-life. How would the more expensive, local produce (on average $.35 per ounce) match up against the cheaper stuff flown in from California and Mexico (on average $.22 an ounce)? The day after we bought the strawberries, I cut a few berries into slivers, arranged them on numbered plates, and invited 10 people to evaluate the produce. The blind taste-test would tell.

FARMERS' MARKET FINDINGS

• Strawberry labeled #1 pleased the testers' palates. The berry, which came to our lab from Phillips Farms in Milford Farms, New Jersey by way of the Union Square Greenmarket, was "complex and juicy," "tart and sour-ish," and "sweet!" according to our evaluators. Though appraisals of taste were favorable, reviews of the berries' texture varied. "A little mushy" was a common opinion; on the other end of the spectrum, a tester praised the strawberry for its "delicate, snappy texture." Strawberry #1 also varied in appearance: some berries were the size of golf balls, some the size of dimes. The flesh was ribbed and colored a wan pink, leading one tester, though the berry scored above average, to lament: "Too pink and oblong, looks like they have warts. Just unhappy strawberries."

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• Strawberry #2 turned out to be labeled appropriately, as it rated the second-best of all berries and best among farmers' market fruit. I bought strawberry #2 a block from the GRHI labs, at the 57th Street Greenmarket, from the stand of Toigo Orchards, a farm in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. To the eye, the berries were "dark," "irregular," "very red," and "almost burgundy." But, again, testers were inconsistent in their perceptions. "Fresh," "a bit buttery," "very sweet," and "a little tangy" thought some. Others: "not too much flavor," "inconsistent," and "weirdly shaped."

These two strawberries tell the story of the four farmers' market pints we tested: opinions of the berries greatly varied. Did the differences begin with the fruit or taste-tester? Perhaps both. Visually and taste-wise, farmers' market strawberries were diverse. Some were large, lumpy, ugly, or fluted, some were smooth and round; some were sweet and others were tart or watery. Even in a pint from a single farm we found many tastes, colors, sizes, and degrees of ripeness. Grocery store strawberries were more consistent.

SUPERMARKET SCOOP

• Strawberry labeled #3, a non-organic strawberry from Whole Foods, was consistently excellent. It scored a half-point better than the nearest berry in both taste and texture. Large, glossy, scarlet, and voluptuous, it was a looker. Its taste was described as "tropical and fresh," "citrusy," and "firm and juicy." It had, to testers, "perfect color" and a "full, nice traditional photogenic shape."

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• Not all grocery store strawberries dazzled testers. Strawberry #4, from A&P, looked "juicy," "jumbo," and "amazing," but the berry's taste told another story. "Bitter and mushy," said one tester. "A little watery," "funny aftertaste," and "typical" noted three others. Curiously, this pint of strawberries, which resembled the Whole Foods strawberries in size (large, conical, a juiced-up berry), varied more than other grocery store strawberries from berry to berry. Here, some berries appeared darker and softer because they were passing the age of prime ripeness. Perhaps this difference accounts for the drop-off in taste.

• Interestingly, the only USDA organic strawberry we tasted, which was bought at Whole Foods, scored the lowest in flavor and texture of the eight pints of strawberries in our evaluation. Priced the highest ($4.49 per pint), the disappointing strawberry proves that cost doesn't always reflect quality.

BOTTOM LINE

If you're looking for consistently pretty, perky berries, head to the supermarket. Farmers' market strawberries may taste a little better, but they also taste different from farm to farm, pint to pint. When you buy grocery store strawberries, you know, with only a trace of variation, what you are getting. Grocery stores and the large farms that supply them have a better handle on the variables. They can more firmly control the planting, growing, harvesting, shipping, and selling, making for a predictable berry. If you go to a better supermarket, chances are your strawberries will be at the high end of your range of expectations. Another advantage: in our shelf-life test, we found that on average, store-bought strawberries lasted 8.6 days compared to the farmer's market 6.3 days.

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If you're willing to take a chance in the hope that you'll find fragrant, delicious strawberries, head to the farmer's market. Just beware that you might also find "watery, way too mushy" less-tempting choices as well.

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